(OT) Censorship

Tried to do a lookup on Wikipedia to learn the colour of qat chewers' saliva (and to confirm my possibly unreliable recollection that qat was in fact something which one chewed).

It was blocked! Not by Wikipedia, which I could access in other ways (answer: green saliva), but by the mobile phone company whose SIM was in the dongle I was using at that time.

Instead of the explanation I expected, I got something saying that my query was restricted and that access could be given if I contacted the company to prove that I was over 18. Which of course I didn't bother to do.

According to Wikipedia qat is relatively harmless; you can become addicted but it isn't any more serious than a coffee addiction. Seemingly it causes mild euphoria. Not, apparently, as much so as ecstasy.

And elsewhere I learn that UK advisers recommended against making qat illegal here, but their advice was ignored and it is now banned. Hell, we can't have people feeling good. That would never do.

Another 'bitch in the manger' approach. (Well, 'dog' would be even less flattering.)

And of course there's no way of knowing what else the underhanded bastards may be doing.

Reply to
Windmill
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Nanny state anyone? I do feel we are all going to come unstuck when those very well meaning people who supposedly govern us have protected us against so much that when we do encounter something really dangerous we won't be wary and we will all be wiped out.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

On Saturday 13 July 2013 06:28 Windmill wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Well - which mobile company?

Reply to
Tim Watts

On Saturday 13 July 2013 07:43 Brian Gaff wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Just like China...

Reply to
Tim Watts

T-mobile, I'd wager. This can be turned off if ye visit the web portal - adult content block.

Reply to
Adrian C

Vodafone do the same.

Reply to
John Williamson

Dunno about the OP but Three do it. They blocked access to (among other things) SniffPetrol and several IT Security/Hacking web sites citing "adult content". I had to "prove" that I was over 18 to enable access. As soon as I had done that the idiots sent me oodles of text/email recommending that I sign up to pron sites. It seems that in the minds of Three management that any request to be treated as an adult means that you want your phone to be filled with poorly photographed gynaecology lessons.

Reply to
Steve Firth

you mean this :

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For brian.... it's a chinese news report about a chinese farmer who was digging around an old well, and discovered a strange mushroom no one had ever seen before, big city news reporter went out to do a story, young woman doing the report was convinced it was a mushroom along with all the farmers family, they had it in a bucket of water, and were picking it up and examining it.... it was pink, about 6 inches long, with a bulbous form on each end, had a strangely rubbery feel, and a small round hole on one end, and a strange lip like pattern to the other hole.

It was of course a fleshlight... which is a rubber fanny much loved by businessmen working away from home,

Reply to
Gazz

And O2/Giffgaff

Reply to
alan

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